Nellie and Mark
by Kiss Pookie
Summary: When the new girl from out west comes to Buzzline and shares an office with Mark, he finds more than he could ever want.


**Name :** Bri

**Title :** Nellie and Mark

**Genre :** Romance

**Pairing :** Nellie/Mark

**Rating :** T to be safe.

**Summary :** When the new girl from out west comes to Buzzline and shares an office with Mark, he finds more than he could ever want.

**Disclaimers : **I own nothing. I rent. With the exception of Nellie, however.

**Chapter One **

Nellie Parker was your average goal pursuer. Western born and raised from birth she longed for big city life, not to mention discovering fame with the help of her camera. As far back as she could remember she was longing for a camera and dressing in heels even with her oversized thick prescription glasses she had to wear or else she'd be falling everywhere she would go in those that would belong to her 'perfect' sister Tammy. Currently, Tammy was hitting it big in direct-to-video films and made-for-TV movies on the Lifetime channel, but on the other hand Nellie was the face behind the camera. Now in the place of her dreams, Nellie is excited for a new life, a more grown up life of lights in the city that never sleeps, and when she aced the interview for the job of her choice, Alexxi hired her on the spot., things couldn't get any better for her. Always known as a neat freak, she had been cleaning the large windows that go vertical from floor to ceiling giving a beautiful spectacular view of the surroundings, and on such a high floor the people down below look as if they are mice, the cabs look like the small Hot Wheel's cars children get in cereal boxes and the lights at night are spectacular on her late nights. With her filming out of the way cleaning seemed to be the only entertaining thing she did in the office and she had yet to seen her office-mate , she didn't even know his name. His desk was atrocious, assuming he was a male. When proud and smudge free windows are seen by Nellie's eyes she plops childishly on her rolling chair and pops out a magazine when she hears a door open seeing a early 20's looking male with light strawberry-blonde hair and dark square rimmed glasses, just like hers. In addition he had a messenger bag hanging off his shoulder and walked to his desk without so much as a hello, "Hello office-mate!" He was ripping his desk apart placing, trash, reels and more into the bag.

"More like goodbye. . ", Mark Cohen grumbled half-heartedly as he's still rummaging through his desk. It's a wonder he had only started a little over four months ago at Buzzline and his desk was already looking as if a bomb had exploded.

She frowned closing the magazine, "Why is that? Alexxi fire you?"

"Alexxi doesn't fire, she's too fake to fire. . people simply grow tired of her fake-nice act and they quit." he threw things around angrily, before he briefly paused from his brisk activity.

"Are you one of those, "people"?" She asked with quotations in her index and middle fingers clamping up and down, most people traditionally call a gesture of that sort air quotes.

"Well, yes."

"Why do you let her get to you? She's just a person who doesn't know that people take offense to how she is. . She's an actress type person being on camera. She must've thought your work was good enough to hire, what do you think?"

"I don't know, you be the judge. " He tossed her his favorite reel, the movie that took him a year to make, it was the story of a year in the life of friends, it was the story he would want to see day in and day out and for him and his friends, it was the best year ever. It was the year they dropped the fear of regrets and lived for the day. The only people who had viewed the film was himself of course, many times as he perfected and improved it, and his friends who had taken part, the faces that graced the film, he was so proud. It was the reason why he quit, it was the film that he had to make and it was the film of him his life and his friends.

She looked at the real and quickly noticed that the camera must be an older model due to the fact that she had no idea how to play it back, she lightly laughed, "How do I play it?"

Mark then sat up, leaning downward to fetch the screen out of his bag to set it up. It took him a moment but when he was done and set up he then turned on his camera placing it and moving out a smaller desk proportioning it correctly, he strategically placed the reel in and turned it on, "Alright."

Moments after watching the reel she smiled and applauded, "I'm Nellie and I beg you to stay! Please!"

"I'm Mark." He grinned, and greeted her "Nice to meet you Nellie."

"So you're staying?" She asked smiling, "Since you know the lay of the land, you could help me out - I'm still very lost. I've yet to find the cafeteria."

"Well the cafeteria is in the rear of the building in the basement. . I still say you should go to the life café, my friend Collins works there when he's not working at school. Either way you have an hour to eat - it takes five seconds to get down to the ground floor, call a cab and the life café should be close by unless there's traffic but it's not rush hour. I could do it practically with my eyes closed."

"Looks like I should be around you more often, you seem to know where everything's at." Nellie told him still standing beside him, "Alexxi assigned us nothing. ."

"Basically there's days where I sit here and do squat, those are days when I'll blow off work." Mark tells her sitting in his rolling chair which was now somewhere in the center of the room, "So where were you originally?"

"New Mexico." She replied, "Santa Fe."

He couldn't help but chuckle, small world. He thought a lot of things about Santa Fe , between Roger Angel and Collins they all remember it well when they wished and clowned at the subway. He knew Roger ran away to Santa Fe, probably to find Angel's spirit more or less, he had a few excuses but the manner he wishes were better, "Small world."

"Oh you've been there recently?"

"No my best friend was there though." he told her.

"Cool." She told Mark, "I hope he liked it there."

"He might've, but that would explain why he came back."

"Maybe something was waiting for him here, a good opportunity. . Once you go cross country you want to go back to your roots, in time. Not me, I don't miss the place not at all. Nothing was there for me. I always wanted to be city mouse instead of country mouse. I like to say, once you find a place you really like, going to a desolate place seems like a waste. I came here to get moving on a film career."

"Same here. " Mark laughed "Something was waiting for him here. . but he was too much a thick headed person to see it. He tends to do that to himself. . shut people out - hurt himself in the end - he only regrets it later. Same old story."

"Poor guy. He reminds me of a guy who used to live in my apartment complex. He just broke my heart watching him in the coffee cafe downstairs he'd be writing in his notebook like a madman trying to replace something. . see something that wasn't there. He always would play his guitar on various evenings and then he disappeared about two weeks later. What I did like was that he was determined, just as determined as I."

"Sounds just like my friend. He spent about three years grieving and living in a hermit shell afraid to go outside after his girlfriend committed suicide. Oh, he was a mess after that."

"Oh dear. . " Nellie bit her lip.

"He's my best friend, but. . he frustrates me with the way he messes with his life. He's got so much to live for."

"He's got time. We all do."

"Not him. I don't know if he does. He's pretty happy right now, he's got a steady girlfriend and a job now. But, enough about him."

"He looks a lot like the guy in your movie."

"Who?"

"The guy . . I used to see at my apartment."

"It's already too small of a world, don't scare me Ninny. . "

"Nellie. " she corrected him, ". . it's Nellie, Nellie Parker."

"Sorry. . But excuse the mess and status of my desk." Mark told Nellie intentionally changing the topic from a touchy one to a not so but something she should be aware of - their office that they would of course share.

"I like messy. I seem to find things better in clutter - I hope you don't find me crazy, I just hope you aren't a neat freak." Nellie smiled, bringing back the topic, that he knew he had to answer. His friend needed help even if he was in a great condition, "Did your friend ever find what he needed?"

"Time away - yes. The girl? He hasn't exactly asked her out - but they sure act quite. . friendly toward one another if you know where I'm getting at. If you know Roger like I do, he badly wants to - she doesn't have a lot of time yet either - but they aren't official at all. He's deathly afraid she'd go herself before he gets the chance - but he is seriously taking his good old time, he's got abandonment issues' well, maybe if you aren't busy after work you could meet my friends." he nonchalantly insisted.

"I'd like that." she sweetly smiled, to Mark it was almost like her eyes had a radiant shiny sparkle.


End file.
